The Wanderer's Necklace eBook

“A gift for you also, Lady Martina. Take
this ring from my hand and place it on your own.
It seems a small thing, does it not? Yet something
lies within its circle. In this city I saw to-day
a very beauteous house built by one of your Grecian
folk, and behind it lands that a swift horse could
scarcely circle twice within an hour, most fruitful
lands fed by the waters. That house and those
lands are yours, together with rule over all who dwell
upon them. There you may live content with whomever
you may please, even if he be a Christian, free of
tax or tribute, provided only that neither you nor
he shall plot against my power. Now, to all three
of you farewell, perchance for ever, unless some of
us should meet again in war. General Olaf, your
ship lies in the harbour; use it when you will.
I pray that you will think kindly of Harun-al-Rashid,
as he does of you, Olaf Red-Sword. Come, let us
leave these two. Lady Martina, I pray you to
be my guest this night.”

So they all went, leaving Heliodore and myself alone
in the great room, yes, alone at last and safe.

CHAPTER V

IRENE’S PRAYER

Years had gone by, I know not how many, but only that
much had happened in them. For a while Irene
and young Constantine were joint rulers of the Empire.
Then they quarrelled again, and Constantine, afraid
of treachery, fled with his friends in a ship after
an attempt had been made to seize his person.
He purposed to join his legions in Asia, or so it
was said, and make war upon his mother. But those
friends of his upon the ship were traitors, who, fearing
Irene’s vengeance or perhaps his own, since
she threatened to tell him all the truth concerning
them, seized Constantine and delivered him up to Irene.
She, the mother who bore him, caused him to be taken
to the purple Porphyry Chamber in the palace, that
chamber in which, as the first-born of an emperor,
he saw the light, and there robbed him of light for
ever.

Yes, Stauracius and his butchers blinded Constantine
as I had been blinded. Only it was told that
they drove their knives deeper so that he died.
But others say that he lived on, a prisoner, unknown,
unheeded, as those uncles of his whom he had
blinded and who once were in my charge had lived,
till in Greece the assassin’s daggers found their
hearts. If so, oh! what a fate was his.

Afterwards for five years Irene reigned alone in glory,
while Stauracius, my god-father, and his brother eunuch,
Aetius, strove against each other to be first Minister
of the Crown. Aetius won, and, not content with
all he had, plotted that his relative Nicetas, who
held the place of Captain of the Guard, which once
I filled, should be named successor to the throne.
Then at last the nobles rebelled, and, electing one
of their number, Nicephorus, as emperor, seized Irene
in her private house of Eleutherius, where she lay
sick, and crowned Nicephorus in St. Sophia. Next
day he visited Irene, when, fearing the worst and broken
by illness, she bought a promise of safety by revealing
to him all her hoarded treasure.